1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to personal computer configuration. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a computer implemented method, data processing system, and computer usable program code for individualized software deployment for hardware-independent personal computer mass deployment.
2. Description of the Related Art
In mass software deployment projects, customers commonly have the numerous concerns, such as:                The customer owns different brands and/or models of personal computers, which gives rise to many hardware-specific images.        The customer has a huge software repertoire and image library that is usually poorly managed.        The customer requires that the suite of software to be installed is unique and tailored to individual personal computer users.        The customer expressed the needs to control the number of images created in light of upcoming personal computer hardware models and brands.        
Associated challenges that may arise out of the above requirements:                Number of images grows larger with every purchase of a new personal computer brand and/or model. As a result, images soon become obsolete and a significant amount of skilled labor and cost can be incurred to create & maintain the images.        Image library becomes too big and unmanageable as the personal brands and models become increasingly diversified, this gives rise to great difficulty in information technology maintenance support.        To satisfy the need for individualized suite of software for each personal computer user, a sizeable information technology support team is required to keep track of the user vs. software matrix and perform the actual software installations. Keeping track of the information is widely recognized as a time-consuming, labor intensive, and an expensive approach which is subjected to reliability and consistency issues.        
Thus, the growth innovative metrics (GIM) becomes undesirable due to a high ratio of headcount vs. revenue. Current solutions in personal computer mass deployment, such as ImageUltra™ Builder (IUB) from International Business Machines, Inc., and Ghost™ and PowerQuest™ from Symantec™ Corporation, are used extensively to deploy software images and/or software. However, there are limitations to the current solutions, such as high running cost, limited capabilities, and compromises.
In the ImageUltra™ Builder the process starts by booting the target computer with an ImageUltra™ Builder deployment compact disc or ImageUltra™ Builder deployment diskette and selecting the required maps from the repository. The selected maps, and modules defined within the maps, are obtained from a repository and copied over a network to a service partition. An installation phase is started by making selections from installation menus to define the image to be installed. The modules required for the defined image are unpacked from the service partition onto a C partition. Finally, the setup process begins and, once completed, the C partition contains the new image and the service partition contains a smart image, which can be used for client side recovery.
Thus, current solutions are time-consuming, labor intensive, and expensive.